In a cloud computing environment, computing is delivered as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software and information are provided to computers and other devices as a metered service over a network, such as the Internet. In such an environment, computation, software, data access and storage services are provided to users that do not require knowledge of the physical location and configuration of the system that delivers the services.
In a virtualized computer environment, such as may be implemented in a physical cloud computing node of the cloud computing environment, the virtualized computer environment includes a virtual operating system. The virtual operating system includes a common base portion and separate user portions that all run on a physical computer. The physical computer is referred to as a host. The common base portion may be referred to as a hypervisor in which one or more virtual machines in the user portions are run by the hypervisor.
Currently, the cloud computing nodes may utilize a virtual file system cache, commonly referred to as a “look-aside cache,” to be used for accelerating shared storage access. The “look-aside cache” is utilized by a single hypervisor and the virtual machines run by the hypervisor. However, in certain situations, the look-aside cache is not being fully utilized due to the minimal input/output (I/O) operations of those virtual machines. Hence, in certain situations, the look-aside cache is being inefficiently utilized.